World Cup 2010: Even Winnie Mandela's joining in…

Today was not a good day to be taken ill in Soweto. Outside the main hospital this lunchtime it was splendid chaos. A spontaneous party had broken out in the street and dozens of nurses, technicians, cleaners, even doctors in their theatre robes, had rushed out to join in.

All across the main highway people were dancing, singing and blowing vuvuzelas. Any car sporting a South African flag from its window was stopped and serenaded. And since every car in town is flying the flag, there was a lot of serenading going on.

To suggest that South Africans are excited about Friday’s big kick off is to engage in the most absurd sort of understatement. Like they have been transformed into an entire nation of Liam Gallaghers, everyone is mad for it. If they stage a street party simply because the tournament is about to kick off, we can only speculate on what would happen should the country’s footballers actually win a game. Collective blood pressure would go into orbit. Admissions to the hospital would treble.

That’s if anyone could get in. One poor chap I encountered had a broken leg and was attempting to hop his way through the crowd of partying medics to the hospital entrance, brandishing his letter of appointment. Sensing he wasn’t going to get far, he eventually gave up and joined in the dancing. Albeit on one leg.

Down the road in Soweto’s biggest shopping mall, everyone was dressed in the national team shirt: women, children, the old, the young, shop staff and customers alike. Even within the confines of the mall, the noise of vuvuzelas was constant, as if someone was forever dragging heavy furniture across the floor tiles. It is a noise, I suspect, that by the end of the tournament we will come to wish was more carefully rationed.

Perhaps hearing the noise from her palatial residence up the road, Winnie Mandela turned up at the mall, looking regal in the back of a chauffeured Audi. She parked up just by us and one of her security guards approached and asked if all the noise was because the Bafana Bafana team were visiting. We said no, there was no sign of them, the excitement appeared to be spontaneous. At which Winnie retreated, her photo opportunity not materialising and the endless buzz of vuvuzelas ringing in her ears.